Our long national nightmare is over. The Flyers’ losing streak is over. After hitting the season-high six consecutive losses mark on Saturday against the Rangers, a still-depleted Flyers team went into Vegas to face off against the top team in the Pacific, looking for a reset, and they came out on top. It wasn’t the highest flying of showings, but it was a resilient one, as the Flyers managed to eke out a 2-1 win over the Golden Knights.
The Basics
First period: 3:46 – Travis Konecny (unassisted)
Second period: 19:28- Tomas Hertl (Eichel, Stone)PPG
Third period: 7:22- Travis Konecny (unassisted)SHG
SOG: 25 (VGK) – 17 (PHI)
Some takeaways
Flyers strike first
The struggles that the Flyers have had though much of this season to start games on time and find their legs early have been well documented, and we came into this game with the keen sense that avoiding those struggles would go a long way to help the Flyers get things back on track, and that’s exactly what they were able to do here. They came out with some decent pace and were able to find a pretty immediate impact, as they capitalized on a turnover by Tomas Hertl and Travis Konecny put away a goal on the breakaway, on their first shot of the game.
What was notable about these early goings, though, was not just that the Flyers were able to score first — they did that on Saturday against the Rangers and look how much good that did them — but also that they were able to quite well keep their foot on the gas and keep the pressure on for much of the period, playing an effective possession game even if they weren’t able to pour on the chances. Now, the Golden Knights did get a good flurry of dangerous chances late in the period, but the Flyers were able to take care of that, and make it into the first intermission with a tone effectively set.
Penalty kill tested early and often
The Flyers may have been able to jump out to that early lead, but it would end up just as quickly being challenged saw their struggling penalty kill was called upon early in the first period after Christian Dvorak was whistled for a hold. It was a critical moment, a door open for the game to go sideways on the Flyers, but the penalty killers came up big for them — they were able to really frustrate the Vegas power play, getting in lanes and keeping their most dangerous chances bottled up.
Through the rest of the game, the imbalance in penalties tilted to the point of cartoonishness. There’s not arguing that the Flyers didn’t show flashes of true lack of discipline, but a couple of softer calls on them paired with a couple of missed calls on the Golden Knights left a sour taste in the mouth. But, all the same, the Flyers ended up with quite a few penalties to kill in this one, and they fared overwhelmingly well in that task. The Golden Knights were given seven opportunities to work with on the power play tonight, and the Flyers were able to kill all but one of them — and the only goal they did allow was, to their credit, a truly fluky deflection — as they continued that level of disruption nicely, and even created a couple of big shorthanded rushes, one of which culminated in Konecny’s second goal of the game. It was a huge performance from a penalty kill which has had some major struggles recently, and a huge reason why they were able to pull off this win.
Ersson responds in a big way
Key to all of this as well, of course, was the huge effort Sam Ersson was able to deliver in tonight’s start. It’s no secret that things have been difficult for Ersson of late, but he put in some underrated good work in Saturday’s relief appearance, in spite of the outcome, and kept that rolling into tonight’s start.
This wasn’t the absolute busiest game he’s had to work with this season, as the Golden Knights only out up 25 shots across the whole of the game, and had long stretches in which they couldn’t manage to put anything on net, but this still wasn’t an easy game for Ersson. The defense in front of him did better to help him out, but he had to be locked in with his shot tracking and his reaction times, and locked in he was. The Golden Knights got the better of the shot quality in this one, both at even strength and on special teams, and Ersson had to come up with some huge saves, and just about each time he was called upon, he delivered. The one goal he did give up is hard to pin on him, but all the same, it was a positive as well to see him shake it off and make sure that he wouldn’t be beaten again for the rest of the game. It took a tremendous effort, including another big save right in the crease at the final buzzer to pull off this win, but Ersson brought it.
Controlling play
While the overall shot total skews in favor of the Golden Knights in this one — notably aided by the generous proportion of power plays that they had to work with — it’s worth acknowledging that the Flyers were able to control play quite nicely though long stretches at 5-on-5 in this one. After they pulled out to the early lead in the first period and survived the late-frame push by Vegas, the Flyers were able to pull momentum back in their favor to start the second period. They were buzzing nicely for their own part, but their shot suppression was working well along with that, as it also took close to 11 minutes before Vegas was able to register their first shot on goal of the period. Now, this was followed up by another late-period flurry, but this doesn’t undo their possession work entirely.
All told, the Flyers came out of this one with 54.55 percent of the share of shot attempts at 5-on-5, and while they didn’t have the greatest volume of very dangerous chances — which also certainly contributed to the fact that they were still struggling to score more than a couple of goals — the edge on possession was notable.
Vibe shift
This game was a strange one in a number of ways, and we’d be hard-pressed to argue that it was the very best showing that the Flyers were able to put together so far this season. They were undisciplined at times, there were flashes of carelessness with the puck, and there seemed to be bits of fatigue creeping in at times, but at no time did the Flyers let any of these weak points sink them. The tone through a good portion of Saturday’s game was one of deflation, and that was perhaps the most concerning bit of all. But, despite that and the disappointment that came with that loss, the Flyers were able to rebound nicely tonight. This game wasn’t perfect, and there were things working against them throughout, but at no point did they let any notable frustration creep into their game and throw them off it.
There’s still work to be done here, but this was a really resilient effort from the Flyers, and perhaps it’s just the break they needed to get things moving in the right direction again.
All stats via Natural Stat Trick and the NHL.
